Qatar: Efficiency drive reaches top of QP

The appointment of Saad Al-Kaabi as Qatar Petroleum (QP) managing director may prove a significant step in helping Qatar to confront serious challenges in its energy sector, which range from declining crude output, disappointments over deep gas (pre-Khuff) exploration, and delays in the Barzan offshore gas development to increasing competition in the global gas market. Al-Kaabi is expected to tackle inefficiencies across the sector, in part a legacy of the more freewheeling way of doing things that once suited the ambitious emirate.